


(Don’t Wait Till) The Night Before Christmas

by StrikeTeamDelta (panicsdownpour)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21948889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicsdownpour/pseuds/StrikeTeamDelta
Summary: Their first time exchanging Christmas gifts in the settled years is given a shake up by a freshly drawn up rulebook and a mad dash trip
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 24
Collections: The Hunger Games 2019 Season of Hope Holiday Gift Exchange





	(Don’t Wait Till) The Night Before Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [endlessnightlock (Endlessnightlock)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endlessnightlock/gifts).



> Written for my fabulous Secret Santa giftee, butrfac14! Hope you enjoy and enjoy the additions in the updates and next chapter to be posted soon with just what happened after all the running wild (because your prompt was so good once I got in the flow of things, I had ideas for a more extended chapter bit, so extra thank you’s to ya :)

"If we're going to do presents this year, there are going to be rules."

The announcement comes mid-morning, after they'd hauled the tree inside and Katniss had set a couple of the neighborhood children to work decorating with a box of odds and ends and ornamental types of things she’d gotten for a third coin from Kalum, who had found them who knows where but as unconventional as his traveling shop was in all it’s dragging glory, he was good for his scavenged product. The agreeable talk about presents -the agreeable bit was the agreeing at all- was a silent compromise or maybe more of a gift of sorts. She had no idea for holiday tree trimming and while she still had yet to come around to the idea of having their own children, she had come around to clucking after the children in group home nearby. Peeta loved the life kids brought to the house, and she rather liked it too. The sound of cranberries pinging off the wall panelling, followed by the sound of a scuffle and a barrage of laughter in the living room told her the couple would have the joys of cleaning up after the happy hoard too.

"Rules? Okay. What do you think are sufficiently festive gift giving rules? So I'm clear."

Peeta can't even begin to hide the laughter in his voice when he responds from his spot at the stove, hunched over the pot of vanilla cream presumably to keep his smile out of sight. It was the least he could do, in Katniss' opinion. How was he so simultaneously insufferable and entirely grossly charming? Katniss wanted to trick him into something more serious, less assured, without losing the glow of a feeling that came with his smile. 

It was impossible to argue against; he had softened her despite her best efforts. Not that that would dissuade her from the work up she’d marched to the kitchen table with, freshly inked upon waking up to the reminder the holidays drew so very much closer. Damn daily calendar. 

"Nothing extravagant," she listed off, ticking off a finger for each limit set. She had put some thought into the matter and intended to be sure Peeta's penchant for gifting didn't run away with him. Or their purse. "No grand gestures. Nothing cheesy."

Carefully pouring the steaming custard into ramekins, Peeta hummed a noise of consideration. "Okay. Agreed. Now for my rules. Nothing too practical. Nothing too useful. Three item limit."

The cat yelped from the living room and the bell jingled as the cat door swung shut. Even Hay couldn't manage the bunches Christmas merriment. 

"Only twenty four hours allowed. Starting--," Peeta looked to the dimming late afternoon sunlight streaming in and then the rudimentary clock hanging on the far wall above the fridge. "--now."

Katniss hadn't prepared for the last rule he'd set in place; she probably should have known he would pull some manner of silliness out, but did she ever wish she had. Mindlessly she tapped her pen against the table, the written rules on the pad before her, Katniss mentally scrambled for just how she was going to pull off the perfect gift within the time limits and all of their set-imposed rules, all while taking home the prize for best Christmas gift in the house. 

Their first couple of holiday seasons, there had been no gift exchange. There was the gift of good company, the gift of peace, the gift of butter cookies and cheese buns and little pies because they had to eat and it was a silently and mutually agreed upon way to bring festiveness in to their quiet seasonal cheer. Holidays aside though, Peeta was markedly a better gift giver in her book than she was. It was in the little things, the day to day sort of non-gift gifts and the kind-of holidays that he excelled, always. While she certainly did her fair share of giving in little ways, they were the practical kinds of things. Helping him hunt down the paints he wanted, fixing the set up in his shed studio to give just the right lighting (though anything was better than just sunlight through the scratched up window. But this time, it was her chance to give to him as much as she gave to him. And alright, she was a little or a lot competitive. She was going to win, even with these rules. 

The race to Christmas gift giving began as well as she had expected. Katniss had walked around town through the wooded area near her old house and back again. Three hours down and she had sufficiently procrastinated as productively as she ever had. By the time she had returned to the house, she was almost sure that Peeta had sorted his list out, created the whole darn thing, and had it wrapped beneath the tree. Well, maybe not all that, but no doubt he was more than prepared for the shopping trip they’d agreed to before she had gone out, promising that she would resist starting to shop early no matter how many good ideas she had. Which was a joke of a thing considering just how much scratch she had by the time she 

Peeta’s eager rocking on his heel, standing on the front steps when she arrived home, Katniss knew she was going to need to put the pedal to the metal. If she needed to grab half the store and assemble later, she was going to pull this one off.

Unfortunately, Peeta had a very similar idea with a more laidback attitude, sure, but enough enthusiasm to make up for the lack of stressing. Neither noticed the walk to the shops, the idle chatter about who was selling what where and about the Christmas letter they had received the day before from Finnick and Annie, the gag gift of buzzing rings from Johanna, and what they thought Haymitch would do this year at dessert to shake things up. The bite of late December winds and frost under worn boots -was new boots a good idea or a cop out?- didn’t draw their mind too far from the goal of a very merry Christmas spent basking in the other being so undeniably pleased the more. 

Arriving at The Market East, the easily largest shop with the largest variety though it was all relative considering it was housed in a midsized former government office. The hum and buzz of the holiday festiveness, all homemade and quite the beauty for all the hard work obviously put into the displays. It wasn't shiny or new but it was impressive. It would almost have gotten Katniss into the spirit, if it wasn't for the daunting task ahead. "We meet back here in an hour, and go from there. Got it?" Katniss had announced at the start, watch in hand. Peeta had raised his, less a minute, a grin so cocky they shouldn't have been surprised by what would ensue. 

Katniss planned as she moved, grabbing all manner of things as she went. Better to have than to not and need it. A steel spatula, a bundle of long turkey feathers, a secondhand balsa wax seal that had scratches worn smooth into red wood. It could work into something- she just wasn’t sure what. Inspiration or practical innovation driven by desperation would come, Katniss knew it. Without, you know, knowing it just yet.

Of course, she hadn’t factored in Peeta doing the exact same scramble in a tight space as she was, especially once inspiration hit in the most insultingly, sweetly simple form of a gift idea of three items, a skirted rule, and a bucket of words.

A run for the same item around a corner and a trip on a cord utility lights set up to be practically festive sent the rigged up box of soap suds being snowed down onto display on children's handmade cloth dolls ready to skate on a pond of still water, water flying. The string of lights wrapped around Peeta's leg, Katniss clutching to his arm, knocked a barrel of kickballs from where they had been precariously tipped for show. Sliding to the floor, her hold loosing from his sleeve, she fell to the hardwood with a Yelp. 

Merchandise barely discernible, Peeta clung to the worn and shaky bookshelf, half out of breath from the scramble up and the strength needed to drag himself up from the slippery half dampened box of bubbles.

“Truce?” 

Katniss wasn’t going to concede if she could help it, even if she could still hear the bounce of the neon rubber kickballs bouncing around her head. Shaking her head, she grabbed at the book they’d both been reaching for, a mash of dust and damp on the cover, triumphantly snatching it to her chest.

“Maybe next year. This year, I’m winning, and you have thirteen minutes.”

The groan that came from the same direction she’d seen him before the tumble was so sweetly satisfying, she had to laugh. “You can’t be ready to give up that easily. Wasn’t the embarrassing ourselves in public your idea?” A ball bumped into her leg, and she pushed herself to sitting up in time to see old Mr. Jurles coming around a corner, mercifully headed for the front door.

“Grab a broom?”

“Fast.”

“...and five extra minutes?”

“...Fine. Six.”


End file.
